They push us through the woods, laughing. I hear a whoop from one of the boys. I think I hear Locke say something about larks being over quickly, but it’s swallowed up in the merriment.
Then a shove at my shoulders and the horrible shock of cold water closing over me. I sputter, trying to breathe. I taste mud and reeds. I shove myself up. Taryn and I are waist-high in the river, the current pushing us downstream toward a deeper, rougher part. I dig my feet into the muck at the bottom to keep from being swept away. Taryn is gripping a boulder, her hair wet. She must have slipped.
“There are nixies in this river,” Valerian says. “If you don’t get out before they find you, they’ll pull you under and hold you there. Their sharp teeth will sink into your skin.” He mimes taking a bite.
They’re all along the riverbank, Cardan closest, Valerian beside him. Locke brushes his hand over the tops of cattails and bulrushes, looking abstracted. He does not seem kind now. He seems bored with his friends and with us, too.
“Nixies can’t help what they are,” Nicasia says, kicking the water so that it splashes my face. “Just like you won’t be able to help drowning.”
I dig my feet deeper into the mud. The water filling my boots makes it hard to move my legs, but the mud locks them in place when I manage to stand still. I don’t know how I am going to get to Taryn without slipping.
Valerian is emptying our schoolbags onto the riverbank. He and Nicasia and Locke take turns hurling the contents into the water. My leather-bound notebooks. Rolls of paper that disintegrate as they sink. The books of ballads and histories make an enormous splash, then lodge between two stones and will not budge. My fine pen and nibs shimmer along the bottom. My inkpot shatters on the rocks, turning the river vermilion.
Cardan watches me. Although he doesn’t lift a finger, I know this is all his doing. In his eyes, I see all the vast alienness of Faerie.
“Is this fun?” I call to the shore. I am so furious that there’s no room for being scared. “Are you enjoying yourselves?”
“Enormously,” says Cardan. Then his gaze slides from me to where shadows rest under the water. Are those nixies? I cannot tell. I just keep moving toward Taryn.
“This is just a game,” Nicasia says. “But sometimes we play too hard with our toys. And then they break.”
“It’s not like we drowned you ourselves,” Valerian calls.
My foot slips on slick rocks, and I am under, swept downstream helplessly, gulping muddy water. I panic, snorting into my lungs. I thrust out a hand, and it closes on the root of a tree. I get my balance again, gasping and coughing.
Nicasia and Valerian are laughing. Locke’s expression is unreadable. Cardan has one foot in the reeds, as though to get a better look. Furious and sputtering, I push my way back to Taryn, who comes forward to grab my hand and squeeze it hard.
“I thought you were going to drown,” she says, the edge of hysteria in her voice.
“We’re fine,” I tell her. Digging my feet into the murk, I reach down for a rock. I find a large one and heft it up, green and slick with algae. “If the nixies come at us, I’ll hold them off.”
“Quit,” Cardan says. He’s looking directly at me. He does not even spare a glance for Taryn. “You should never have been tutored with us. Abandon thoughts of the tourney. Tell Madoc you don’t belong with us, your betters. Do that and I’ll save you.”
I stare at him.
“All you have to do is give in,” he says. “Easy.”
I look over at my sister. It’s my fault she’s wet and scared. The river is cold, despite the heat of summer, the current strong. “And you’ll save Taryn, too?”
“Oh, so you’ll do what I say for her sake?” Cardan’s gaze is hungry, devouring. “Does that feel noble?” He pauses, and in that silence, all I hear is Taryn’s hitched breath. “Well, does it?”